Curated playlist
French philosophers of culture
- VoltaireThe line Voltaire is most quoted for was written in 1906, long after he died.
- Denis DiderotJailed writer Denis Diderot annotated Paradise Lost with a toothpick and ink made from slate and wine.
- René DescartesRené Descartes had three dreams in a heated room in 1619. He believed they revealed a new philosophy to him.
- Victor HugoVictor Hugo asked for a pauper's funeral and got the largest in French history.
- Michel FoucaultMichel Foucault's surgeon father expected him to become a surgeon too. He became a leading thinker on power instead.
- Émile DurkheimÉmile Durkheim came from eight generations of rabbis, yet argued religion was social, not divine.
- Pierre-Joseph ProudhonPierre-Joseph Proudhon was the first person known to call himself an anarchist, and many consider him the father of anarchism. He reached that title through the printing trade, having taught himself Latin so that he could print books in…
- Gilles DeleuzeGilles Deleuze never trimmed his fingernails. He once explained that he lacked "normal protective fingerprints", and so could not "touch an object, particularly a piece of cloth, with the pads of my fingers without sharp pain". It is a…
- Claude Lévi-StraussClaude Lévi-Strauss died in 2009, and for four days the world did not know.
- Jacques LacanIn 1963, psychoanalysts stripped Jacques Lacan of the right to train new analysts.
- Alexis de TocquevilleAlexis de Tocqueville was sent to America to study prisons. He went far beyond that and wrote a book on democracy.
- Roland BarthesRoland Barthes was walking home through the streets of Paris on the 25th of February 1980 when the driver of a laundry van knocked him down. A month later, on the 26th of March, he died from the pulmonary complications that followed. He…